One of several photographs taken by Alexander Gardner, Washington, D.
C., 4 days before Lincoln was assassinated.

Scene of the Assassination and Death of Abraham Lincoln

In downtown Washington, almost midway between the
Capitol and the White House, two historic structures, Ford's Theatre and
the House Where Lincoln Died, have been preserved as memorials to
Abraham Lincoln. These buildings are associated with one of the most
tragic and dramatic episodes in American history. In Ford's Theatre, on
the evening of April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John
Wilkes Booth, a member of a prominent theatrical family and brother of
the great actor Edwin Booth. Early the next morning the President died
in the Petersen House, directly across the street from the theatre.

When President Lincoln entered the theatre box that
fateful night, prospects for the Nation's future appeared bright. The
War Between the States was virtually at an end. In the Confederate
States the people were returning to the weary task of reconstruction,
and many Northerners were willing to forget the past in the solemn
rejoicing of victory. Both in the North and in the South the personality
of Lincoln was seen as the guiding hand in binding up the Nation's
wounds. The trials and agonies of the "tragic era" which followed the
conflict might have been spared the South had the Nation heeded the
sublime spirit embodied in the words of the Second Inaugural Address
which spoke of a peace "with malice toward none, with charity for all."
With the smoke of the assassin's pistol, the mounting hopes of an early
reconciliation vanished. The mild peace advocated by President Lincoln
gave way to the outcry of the Northern radicals for vengeance.

In his death, as in his life, Abraham Lincoln has
entered deeply into the folklore and history of our country. He has
become an eternal symbol, to us and to the world, of the heights to
which a common man can aspire under a democratic way of life. The
Lincoln Museum portrays his homely greatness and the tragedy of his
death. At no place can the work of Lincoln as a national leader and as
President be more appropriately commemorated than at the site where this
work was brought to an abrupt conclusion. The Petersen House, restored
as of that period, carries one to the days of the Civil War and to one
of that war's saddest nights.